The incident involved one of 5 turbines at the Ransonmoor wind farm located in the Fens of Cambridgeshire. The project consists of 2 Senvion MM82 and 3 Gamesa G80 wind turbines for a total nameplate capacity is 10.1 MW. The Gamesa turbines were placed in sevrice in 2007; the Senvion turbines followed a year later in 2008. The damaged turbine was built by Gamesa.

A wind turbine is being allowed to burn itself out after being struck by lightning. Fire crews are at the scene of the blaze at Ransonmoor wind farm, near Doddington, following the lightning strike in the early hours of the morning.

Footage shot by firefighters at the site shows the nacelle of the turbine burned out, one blade still burning, smoke damage at the base of the tower, and smoke billowing out into the Fenland countryside.

Many wind turbines are now 20 or even 25 years old. This increases the risk of serious accidents, of which some failures have already been reported. TÜV therefore demands the introduction of a mandatory inspection program in Germany.

In mid-May, crews will be removing the nacelle of the turbine, which was heavily damaged in an April 1 fire. ...A Vestas engineer concluded that the turbine experienced “an arc flash,” a type of electrical explosion, that led to the electrical fire.

A Huron Wind Vestas V80 1.8MW turbine was damaged by high winds off Lake Huron north of Tiverton on May 4, 2018. A worker at a neighbouring facility captured the image of the tip of the turbine blade broken and dangling from the structure.

According to the engineer’s findings, the turbine experienced an arc flash that caused an electrical fire. Officials with Vestas have declared the nacelle a total loss, though the tower and foundation are reusable, and will be providing the University with the costs for options ranging from decommissioning of the turbine to replacement of the unit.

Siemens Gamesa has commenced a blade repair and upgrade campaign at the Anholt offshore wind farm, after signing agreements with Ørsted for these works to be carried out on the Danish offshore wind farm and UK’s London Array, both featuring Siemens Gamesa’s 3.6MW wind turbines that have been affected by leading edge erosion.

The damage at the offshore wind farm, "Alpha Ventus", located about 45 kilometers from Borkum, is considerably more serious than initially known. At the beginning of April not only did the plastic covering crash 90 meters into the sea, but half of the nacelle fell off as well. Experts are now investigating whether it is a single incident or possibly serial damage. More than 120 turbines of this type are installed in the North Sea.

Stay Updated

Contact Us

General Copyright Statement
Most of the sourced material posted to WindAction.org is posted according to the Fair Use doctrine of copyright law for non-commercial news reporting, education and discussion purposes. Some articles we only show excerpts, and provide links to the original published material. Any article will be removed by request from copyright owner, please send takedown requests to: info@windaction.org